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Hi All my name is Wayne I live in a agricultural part of Spain (an engineering waste land). I have a BV20 Axminster lathe and a KTF mill drill. I have dabbled in cnc building and put stepper motors on the mill but the backlash was such that to cut a circle would at best end up egg shaped, so i have a sophisticated power feed but I have come to like turning the handles. I have done virtually no milling or lathe work but have read some good books buy Harold hall and as a first proper project wanted to make a rotary table similar to one of his books, but nothing seemed to fit what I wanted, ( if the truth be known I didn't know what i wanted) then after searching google I saw the dividing head by one of your members Mark and this lead me to your site and by his title assured me that any one could make one, so that thought has kicked me up the back side to stop surfing and start swarfing. After work tomorrow I am going to dust off the mill and lathe and make a start.
I know it is a big project and the out come will not be as good as Mark's cracking job but you got to start some where I will take some picks of my progress for anyone who may be interested.

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Hi Wayne: Like Bill said: Welcome aboard! I was very much intrigued by Mark Fs Divider build.
That project is a little too complex for my tooling and skill. Some of his other work has inspired me to head to my work shop as well.
The detailed explanations and drawings he often provides are an asset to THM and to a beginner like me.

I had to look up the Axminister line of machinery. (cool sounding name).
I for one will be interested in seeing how your make on the index turns out.
And if by chance you end up with extra dividing plates......
Lken

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Hi LucknowKen,
Thank you also for my welcome, yes that is my lathe unfortunately for me mine does not look as new as that one. I too have very little tooling
but I got to thinking if I wait till I have all the tools and the know how I will never get off the computer thinking and dreaming about doing
this stuff. This is my first time on a forum and the first time I have tried to upload any thing, so if it works the drawing in my interpretation of Mark's design
and what i would like to make. I have found some stuff that I am going to use. I have made a few changes to Marks design not because I think his is
wrong, but because either I cannot see how I could make it or don't know why I would need that function, but I have tried to leave the possibility
of adding it in the future. I think by the time I have made the first dividing plate that works my shop will be knee deep in them and if you want any....

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These are the materials I am going to try and use. A piece of 80mm dia bar, the cut off end of a beam I fitted in some ones house,
some bits of plate, The gear is the change wheel from my lathe which I would prefer not to butcher, but with the idea of using the divider
head to make a better one later, a piece of 8mm ground bar out of a printer scanner. I got started this afternoon by putting the 80mm
bar in the lathe faced off the ends and after 2 hours of making swarf and sandpaper had something that looked like what I needed. The ends
are 60mm dia, I wanted 65mm but got lucky at 60, the main body is 107mm long and 77mm dia, the final diameter is where I manage to make the best
finish. Lathe tool was 6mm hss steel sharpened by hand. By the time I got it to cut It was much shorter than when I started. Next project tool sharpener.!!
And a better camera!!!!!

H-M Supporter - Gold Member

Hi All my name is Wayne I live in a agricultural part of Spain (an engineering waste land). I have a BV20 Axminster lathe and a KTF mill drill. I have dabbled in cnc building and put stepper motors on the mill but the backlash was such that to cut a circle would at best end up egg shaped, so i have a sophisticated power feed but I have come to like turning the handles. I have done virtually no milling or lathe work but have read some good books buy Harold hall and as a first proper project wanted to make a rotary table similar to one of his books, but nothing seemed to fit what I wanted, ( if the truth be known I didn't know what i wanted) then after searching google I saw the dividing head by one of your members Mark and this lead me to your site and by his title assured me that any one could make one, so that thought has kicked me up the back side to stop surfing and start swarfing. After work tomorrow I am going to dust off the mill and lathe and make a start.
I know it is a big project and the out come will not be as good as Mark's cracking job but you got to start some where I will take some picks of my progress for anyone who may be interested.[/QUOT

H-M Supporter - Gold Member

These are the materials I am going to try and use. A piece of 80mm dia bar, the cut off end of a beam I fitted in some ones house,
some bits of plate, The gear is the change wheel from my lathe which I would prefer not to butcher, but with the idea of using the divider
head to make a better one later, a piece of 8mm ground bar out of a printer scanner. I got started this afternoon by putting the 80mm
bar in the lathe faced off the ends and after 2 hours of making swarf and sandpaper had something that looked like what I needed. The ends
are 60mm dia, I wanted 65mm but got lucky at 60, the main body is 107mm long and 77mm dia, the final diameter is where I manage to make the best
finish. Lathe tool was 6mm hss steel sharpened by hand. By the time I got it to cut It was much shorter than when I started. Next project tool sharpener.!!
And a better camera!!!!!

Deleted member 31249

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Welcome. I will assist you any way I can in your Quest to build a dividing head or anything else. It makes me feel good to know that I accomplish my mission in these later years of life and that is to pass on knowledge and inspire machinists to make their own quality tooling. I didn't really make any plans for the dividing head because I made it from whatever I could find and I needed to keep it small enough for my little mill, so I kind of built it on the fly by the seat of my pants so to speak. I'm sure there are things that can be improved or done differently and I would have done also but like I said, I used what I could find and ended up with a nice dividing head for around $50

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Gulp!!! Thank you, I am not sure what to type. Thank you flguy, and craigb1960 and Mark. Mark, I hope you don't mind me using you design?
I have done some more work but haven't got myself a new camera yet, I will sort that. I have some cheap cutters from ebay Chinese, cheap and cheerful,
but only 22mm long so I was not sure I could cut all the way through the barrel so after finishing on the lathe I decided that rightly or wrongly that was the next operation. The cutters are end mills so I drilled 8mm holes through the barrel at the limits of the slot to half way through the barrel and then used the
10mm cutter till it started to wear down the plain portion of the shaft. Then used a 12mm cutter to a depth of 15mm then continued with the 10mm cutter to the middle of the barrel. I have a er16 collet chuck in the mill with the cutter a long way out I thought if all goes pear shaped the I will have to buy a longer cutter and have another go later. I have been buying cheap cutters on ebay at £6 for 5 cutters 12mm 10 8 6 4mm for a few weeks one set each week that includes post and inport, i have about 10 sets so if I break one what the heck. I got to the middle, heart in mouth, no probs, and the cut the 2 flats for the
worm spindle at the sides of the main slot. These flats were to be the reference to cut the slot from the other side, I turned the barrel over but I have no parallels so I used 2 6mm hss lathe tools that I had that were the same size as each other, I have 6 of them but only 2 of them are the same size. I wiggled
all in and started again cutting the slot from the other side after about an hour and 3 cups of tea later the slot met, well nearly but not bad.

Deleted member 31249

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Gulp!!! Thank you, I am not sure what to type. Thank you flguy, and craigb1960 and Mark. Mark, I hope you don't mind me using you design?
I have done some more work but haven't got myself a new camera yet, I will sort that. I have some cheap cutters from ebay Chinese, cheap and cheerful,
but only 22mm long so I was not sure I could cut all the way through the barrel so after finishing on the lathe I decided that rightly or wrongly that was the next operation. The cutters are end mills so I drilled 8mm holes through the barrel at the limits of the slot to half way through the barrel and then used the
10mm cutter till it started to wear down the plain portion of the shaft. Then used a 12mm cutter to a depth of 15mm then continued with the 10mm cutter to the middle of the barrel. I have a er16 collet chuck in the mill with the cutter a long way out I thought if all goes pear shaped the I will have to buy a longer cutter and have another go later. I have been buying cheap cutters on ebay at £6 for 5 cutters 12mm 10 8 6 4mm for a few weeks one set each week that includes post and inport, i have about 10 sets so if I break one what the heck. I got to the middle, heart in mouth, no probs, and the cut the 2 flats for the
worm spindle at the sides of the main slot. These flats were to be the reference to cut the slot from the other side, I turned the barrel over but I have no parallels so I used 2 6mm hss lathe tools that I had that were the same size as each other, I have 6 of them but only 2 of them are the same size. I wiggled
all in and started again cutting the slot from the other side after about an hour and 3 cups of tea later the slot met, well nearly but not bad.

Of course I don't mind. I'm honored you would get the inspiration to do this project. I will be glad to help any way I can. I can get carried away adding features to a project. If you leave out the direct indexing feature, you don't need to worry about a way to disengage the worm and if you leave out the collet capabilities, you make the project much easier and still end up with a great dividing head.

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Hi Brino, thanks for the welcome. I have been in Spain for about 14 years now doing building work and metal work, gates and such. The farming is mainly small farms and every-one has a brother or an uncle or a nephew that fixes car or tractors or builds walls.
Hi Mark, Yep! I was thinking of leaving out, at the moment, the ability to dis-engage the
worm but may be add it later if I need it. Also I don't have a proper worm wheel yet and one of the first jobs for the indexer would be to try
and make a set, if I manage this then possibly I could add a vernier hand wheel to make it into a rotary table, because that is another thing
I have not yet got. One thing I have not yet figured out is how to accurately mark the degree graduations on the main body, again this may have
to come later. I won't get in the shop today, me and some of the village lads are off on bikes and quads for a run out in the coutry and it will end up in a bar drinking too much beer, it's a chore but some-one has to do it.

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I will try to find your thread but I think I know what you mean. I managed to get into the shop today after all and started to to mill the flats
where the main spindle goes through, the pic shows the side that the spindle lock will fasten to. I left a small shoulder on the side that the lock will bolt
I thought it would raise it slightly to clear the barrel and not scrape the side, but when I flipped the barrel over to do the other side I could not get
any thing parallel in to mount the barrel on the bed, so I had to turn it back over and clock it back up and mill it off. Tomorrow I will find some way
of boring the hole through the middle.

Deleted member 31249

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my body was flat. I just made a shim the thickness needed to space the lock to be in the right place on the spindle. You are doing great. I never would have had the patience to mill that slot. I made mine in two pieces. I drilled a hole and sawed down to it on each side , then made an end to bolt on. What you did is far better and nicer.

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I did wonder how you made the slot, I thought you might have had a long milling tool and set it up on your
horizontal mill. I though going in from each side of the barrel a bit risky but if the two cuts didn't meet exact
it wouldn't matter as long as they could be cleaned up later and there was enough clearance for the worm wheel.
If i was to do it again, now knowing that I can make the slot, I would cut the flats for the spindle bore first
because it would be easier to reference on the larger area of the flat to cut the slot that the inside of a slot to cut
the flats.
I checked back on your thread #65 and I can see what you mean. Yep I can do that. And looking at your post
again after I have done a bit more turning I realize just how good the quality of your work is and the finish you get
is beautiful.
I will get in the shop again today I will post my progress.

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This morning the problem was to drill a pilot hole for the spindle, my biggest drill bit is 16mm I thought this was to small for boring out
I don't have a boring head I will make some thing. I have some 25mm bar and I thought I could make some kind of boring bar from that
and one of the half dozen broken drill bits I always save. I have a 26mm rota broach but with a 19 shaft won't fit in my largest collet, 16mm.
I was just thinking of how i was to make an adapter when a friend brought me a collet chuck. Could not believe my eyes. A friend of ours died some time
back and this was the only engineering tool he had! So I made a holder for the rota broach to fit the 25mm collet, I had to grind part or the shoulder
off the chuck for it to fit in the mill make a draw bar from some 10mm studding wiggled the barrel in and with my heart in my mouth started to drill.

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As you can see from the first pic my 6mm lathe tools are still my only small parallels. In fact other than my V blocks, my only parallels.
All went well and I ended up with the barrel ready for boring to the final size. Next project some parallels!! and a camera.

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Shetland saddles have a pair of horns, the muckle and peerie —, or she and he neevies or neebies, placed centrally, and one slotted through the other.
Hope this clarifies the term "neebie"
Your index is progressing nicely.
Lken

Active User

Shetland saddles have a pair of horns, the muckle and peerie —, or she and he neevies or neebies, placed centrally, and one slotted through the other.
Hope this clarifies the term "neebie"
Your index is progressing nicely.
Lken

Active Member

WHAT!!! I knew this forum was going to be informative and a place to learn new ideas and techniques, thank you for the very interesting replies on SADDLES
pack or other wise, can somebody please change the title of this thread. lol!!!!